August 27th 2023
Last week a child, shoulder riding Owen’s path,
Their view over hedgebanks clear,
Might have peered across my paddock and pointed,
‘Why is that man praying on his potato patch?’
So indeed it could have seemed:
There I was on a yacht cushion kneeler
Carefully forking up my crop and, such the season,
Sorting tubers from lusty weed roots.
Maybe you could say this was prayer of sorts:
Certainly, with the year we’ve had,
I felt strong gratitude for the yield –
Erratic though it was from plant to blighted plant.
And, from pilot diggings
I knew the flavour of all three varieties
Would be strong, grown in this unchemicaled soil
Enriched by seaweed, fallowing, and fire.
Furthermore, despite the recent rain,
All I lifted surfaced cleanly,
Which omened well for taste-strengthening storage
Far into next Spring.
So I say that all you reading this
Should offer up Potato Prayers of sorts;
For where would any of us be without these faithful plants?
Whose seeds we keep to bury as the good land warms again,
Each annual cycle seeming to better acclimatise –
Surely, such benign alchemy.
Now I do not ask that you direct your thoughts
To one god, or another, or to any;
But somehow, by all that’s decent,
Please be sure to humble your thanks.
© Christopher Jessop 2023
